Ken Knowlton, a Father of Computer Art and Animation, Dies at 91

[robcat2075]

I did not know about this guy...

NYT Article...

 

Ken Knowlton, a Father of Computer Art and Animation, Dies at 91His work at Bell Labs in the 1960s laid the groundwork for today’s computer-generated imagery in film and on TV.

 

 

Quote

 

...After experimenting with movies, he applied similar techniques to portraits and other still images. In the mid-1960s, he and a collaborator named Leon Harmon created a 12-foot-long computer-generated mosaic of a nude woman and, as a joke, hung it on the wall of their boss’s office.

Their boss, Edward E. David, Jr., the Bell Labs executive director of communications research, who would later serve as science adviser to President Richard M. Nixon, was not amused. But the portrait later caught the attention of the pop artist Robert Rauschenberg, who put it on display in his New York City loft when he launched a project called Experiments in Art and Technology, or E.A.T., in the fall of 1967, aiming to develop new collaborations between artists and engineers.

 

The New York Times published an article about the event the next day, including a picture of Dr. Knowlton’s image of the nude woman, titled “Computer Nude (Studies in Perception I).” It was believed to be the first full-frontal nude printed in the pages of The New York Times. A year later, the picture was part of a landmark exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art called “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age.”

 

 

 

[Roger]

I don't believe I've heard of him before today, but it would seem he invented ASCII art.